Month: January 2016

Banking News – Hall Battlegrounds: Banks and Liberal Investors
&nbspActivist investors are turning their sights back toward banks after going simpler on them than on other industries in recent years. Look for the next bank M&A wave to be fueled by aggressive hedge funds as they push for board seats and eventually sales of fiscal institutions.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/dealmaking-approach/hall-battlegrounds-banks-and-liberal-investors-1078900-1.html

Banking News – Hall Battlegrounds: Banks vs. Liberal Investors
&nbspBanking has been silent compared with other industries, but now liberal investors are bulking up and schooling to go after larger targets. Look for the next M&A wave to be fueled by these aggressive hedge funds as they push for board seats and eventually a sale.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/dealmaking-approach/hall-battlegrounds-banks-vs-liberal-investors-1078900-1.html

Banking News – Only Way to Avoid Activists Is to Perform Well, Says PL Capital’s Lashley
&nbspPL Capital is raising money for a new fund that’ll target banks with up to $75 billion of assets, after 20 years of sticking to just union banks with less than $3 billion of assets. In this Q&A, Richard Lashley clarifies why liberal investors are eyeing larger banks now and how banks can avoid his kind.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/dealmaking-approach/only-way-to-avoid-activists-is-to-perform-well-says-pl-capitals-lashley-1079041-1.html

Banking News – The Conscientious objector Among the Liberal Investors
&nbspThe hedge fund Bluestone Fiscal Partners has funds in a handful of banks that it views as takeout targets, but its founder, Ted Peters, says he would never agitate for a sale. Here’s why he values the conscientious objector deal with.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/dealmaking-approach/the-conscientious objector-among-the-liberal-investors-1079107-1.html

Banking News – Why Univest’s Small-Affair Customers Are Pleased to Pay Fees
&nbspUnivest believes its subscription-based pricing model may have solved a persistent fee riddle – charging small-affair customers for various air force without irking them.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-equipment/why-univests-small-affair-customers-are-pleased-to-pay-fees-1079114-1.html

Banking News – Liberal Bank Investors: the Essential Cheat Sheet
&nbspA rush of bank M&A is welcome news to liberal investors, who typically make money when banks make improvements and sell to larger institutions. Here is a look at six firms that have stood out in recent years for pressuring management teams and boards to enhance value for shareholders.
Union Banking – http://www.americanbanker.com/news/dealmaking-approach/liberal-bank-investors-the-essential-cheat-sheet-1079123-1.html

Banking News – Italy expects huge appeal in terrible loans
&nbspGuarantee plot ‘will bridge the gap that between demand and supply for non-the theater loans’
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/08ffaba4-c6ae-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Barclays, Credit Suisse Charged With Dark Pool Violations
&nbsp

The Securities and Chat Fee today announced that Barclays Capital Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC have agreed to settle break cases finding that they debased federal securities laws while in commission uncommon trading systems known as dark pools and Credit Suisse’s Light Pool.

The New York Attorney General’s office is announcing analogous actions against the two firms.

Barclays agreed to settle the charges by admitting misconduct and paying $35 million penalties to the SEC and the NYAG for a total of $70 million. 

Credit Suisse agreed to settle the charges by paying a $30 million penalty to the SEC, a $30 million penalty to the NYAG, and $24.3 million in disgorgement and preconception appeal to the SEC for a total of $84.3 million. 

“These cases are the most recent in a series of strong SEC enforcement actions concerning dark pools and other uncommon trading systems,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “The SEC will take up again to shed light on dark pools to better protect investors.”

“Dark pools have a noteworthy role in today’s equity market, and the firms that run these venues must ensure that they do not make misstatements to subscribers about their notes operations,” said Andrew Ceresney, Boss of the SEC’s Enforcement Rift.  “These largest-ever penalties imposed in SEC cases concerning two of the largest ATSs show that firms pay a steep price when they mislead subscribers.” 

According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding against Barclays:

• Barclays said that a feature called Liquidity Profiling would “endlessly police” order flow in its LX dark pool and that the firm would run “scrutiny reports every week” for toxic order flow. 
• In fact, Barclays did not endlessly police LX for starved trading using the tools it said it would, and it also did not run weekly scrutiny reports.
• Barclays did not adequately release that it now and again overrode Liquidity Profiling by moving some subscribers from the most aggressive categories to the least aggressive.  The result was that subscribers that elected to block trading against aggressive subscribers nonetheless nonstop to cooperate with them. 
• Barclays at times misrepresented the type and number of market data feeds that it used to assess the Inhabitant Best Bid and Offer in LX.  For example, Barclays represented that it “utilize[d] direct feeds from exchanges to deter latency arbitrage” when in fact Barclays used a amalgamation of direct data feeds and other, slower feeds in the dark pool.

“Barclays misrepresented its efforts to police its dark pool, overrode its scrutiny tool, and misled its subscribers about data feeds at the very time that data feeds were an intense topic of appeal,” said Robert Cohen, co-chief of the Market Abuse Unit.  “Investors deserve honest and just markets without this disobedience.”

According to the SEC’s orders instituting settled administrative proceedings against Credit Suisse:

• Credit Suisse misrepresented that its Crossfinder dark pool used a feature called Alpha Scoring to described subscriber order flow monthly in an objective and transparent manner.  In fact, Alpha Scoring built-in noteworthy subjective nitty-gritty, was not transparent, and did not tag all subscribers on a monthly basis. 
• Credit Suisse misrepresented that it would use Alpha Scoring to spot “opportunistic” traders and kick them out of its electronic exchanges network, Light Pool. In fact, Alpha scoring was not used for the first year that Light Pool was operational. Also, a subscriber who scored “opportunistic” could take up again to trade using other system IDs, and direct subscribers were given the chance to resume trading.
• Credit Suisse usual, ranked, and executed over 117 million illegal sub-penny orders in Crossfinder.
• Credit Suisse failed to treat subscriber order in rank in private and failed to release to all Crossfinder subscribers that their confidential order in rank was being transmitted out of the dark pool to other Credit Suisse systems.
• Credit Suisse failed to inform subscribers that the Credit Suisse order router scientifically prioritized Crossfinder over other venues in certain stages of its dark-only routing process.
• Finally, CSSU also failed to release that it operated a equipment called Crosslink that alerted two high frequency trading firms to the being of orders that CSSU customers had submitted for execution.

“Two Credit Suisse ATSs failed to operate as advertised, and failed to comply with copious dictatorial equipment over a multi-year period,” said Joseph Sansone, Co-Chief of the Market Abuse Unit. “The Fee’s action today sends a strong message that the agency will take up again to study ATSs for falling in line with the securities laws.” 

The SEC’s order finds that Barclays debased Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act, Securities Chat Act Section 15(c)(3), Rules 15c3-5(c)(1)(i) and 15c3-5(b) of the SEC’s Market Access Rule, and Rules 301(b)(2) and (10).  The order requires Barclays to pay a $35 million penalty, to stop and desist from these violations, censures Barclays, and requires Barclays to engage a third-party consultant to review its marketing of LX, its Market Access Rule falling in line, and its falling in line with certain equipment of Parameter ATS.

The SEC’s orders find that Credit Suisse debased Section 17(a)(2) of the Securities Act, Rules 301(b)(2), (5) and (10) of Parameter ATS, and Rules 602(b) and 612 of Parameter NMS.  The orders require Credit Suisse to stop and desist from these violations, censure Credit Suisse, and require Credit Suisse to pay $30 million in total penalties, disgorgement of $20,675,510.52, and preconception appeal of $3,639,643.39. Credit Suisse consented to the SEC’s orders without admitting or denying the findings.

The SEC’s investigation of Barclays was conducted by Jason Burt, Charu Chandrasekhar, John Marino, Mandy Sturmfelz, and Jay Scoggins of the SEC Enforcement Rift’s Market Abuse Unit, and trial attorneys Stephan Schlegelmilch and James Smith, with help from Ilan Felix in the New York Regional Office’s examination program.  The case was supervised by Mr. Cohen and Mr. Sansone. 

The SEC’s investigations of Credit Suisse were conducted by Thomas P. Smith Jr. and Nancy A. Brown of the New York office along with Simona Suh, Charles D. Riely, Mandy B. Sturmfelz, and Mathew Wong, Dee O’Hair, Darren Boerner, and Kathryn Pyszka of the Market Abuse Unit and Jonathan Polish of the Chicago Regional Office.  The case was supervised by Mr. Cohen, Mr. Sansone, and Timothy Warren of the Chicago office.  The SEC examiners who conducted an examination that led to the investigation were Simone Celio, Michael McAuliffe, Sean O’Brien, Richard Heaphy, and Mr. Felix. 

The SEC appreciates the help of the NYAG.

SEC.gov Updates: Press Releases – http://www.sec.gov/news/pressrelease/2016-16.html

Banking News – Nigeria questions for $3.5bn urgent circumstances loans
&nbspApproach to World Bank and ADB latest sign of oil price pain
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aeb1a978-c832-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Barclays, CS to pay $154m over dark pools
&nbspRegulators have finely tuned analysis of private share trading venues
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d160fc2a-c84c-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Corporate Diary
&nbspInvestors and executives will see the full impact of collapsing crude prices on oil majors’ results
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/922dcc26-c357-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Herman Gref, Sberbank’s survivor chief
&nbspThe head of Russia’s largest bank discusses the bumps on his road to reform
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4abbcba6-c413-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – JPMorgan and Masters in blockchain trial
&nbspBank working with Digital Asset Worth in efforts to cut trading costs
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d3f9296-c5ef-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – British regulators help Iranian banks
&nbspStart-up unit assists three lenders to overcome sanctions legacy
FT.com – Banks – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54144ec2-c692-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_banks%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Endowments face reality of low returns
&nbspUS colleges and universities will have to make hard choices about whether to scale back their costs, says Stephen Foley
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5668294a-c5c6-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Movers & shakers: February 1
&nbspGuillermo Ossés joins Man Group as head of emerging market debt strategies
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2279e0a2-c444-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Front, Dependability face proxy access row
&nbspShareholders fight for right to propose board members at investee companies
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/39e4da6e-c672-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – China tightens money market parameter
&nbspDoubts over whether new rules, probable by February, will protect investors adequately
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66f85d72-b949-11e5-bf7e-8a339b6f2164.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Pension stress tests show €773bn deficit
&nbspSchemes in the UK, Netherlands and Germany face an ‘existential threat’
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d33281ec-c5de-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Banking News – Investment consulting figures exposed
&nbspWillis Towers Watson says pension funds using fiduciary contracts greatly stuck-up funding levels
Fiscal Times – Fiscal Air force – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3bd3c0a4-c5e3-11e5-b3b1-7b2481276e45.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_financial-air force%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct